David Andrew Wiebe began building and writing for the web at the tender age of 14. At 17, he started learning the guitar and within a few short years had released an EP with his band and a full-length solo album.
Wiebe leveraged his content producing efforts to become an online marketing and social media strategist. Today he works with companies like TuneCity.com to develop compelling and relevant online content. He also writes on his own blog at DAWCast.com.

InfoBarrel is a writing platform for non-fiction, reference-based, informative content. Opinions expressed by InfoBarrel writers are their own.

Content Marketing Strategy: How to Develop Your Online Presence

Credit: Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free ImagesYou've probably heard of learning styles before. The essence of it is that your individual learning style guides the way you learn. Some people prefer sound and music, while others prefer logic and systems. Some people favor visual images, while others like to use their body and sense of touch to gather information.

While it may not be possible to appeal to all learning styles on the web, it is possible to extend your reach by incorporating all of the following mediums in your content marketing strategy. By leveraging blogging, podcasting and video, you can appeal to more people who like to consume content in specific ways.

Blog

Search engines love blogs because they are keyword rich. Every time you write about your niche or industry, you can develop a rapport with your audience and increase your authority on that subject.

One note of caution: you shouldn't write just for the sake of search engine rankings. It's always a good idea to target your keywords in your title and text, but it's just as important - if not more important - to make your posts readable by real human beings as well. If your posts can't be deciphered by a human being, then you actually risk being penalized by search engines.

Not to say that you can't appeal to people with other learning styles, but blog posts generally appeal to people who like to absorb information by reading. In case a portion of your audience is hearing impaired, it's also a matter of accessibility.

Podcast

Your blog will make you more visible on Google. Meanwhile, your podcast will make you more visible on iTunes. There are hundreds of millions of bloggers in North America already, but only hundreds of thousands of podcasters[1]. This means that there's still a lot of room for newcomers.

Podcasting does tend to require more time and effort than blogging. If you're the type of person to publish three to five blog posts in a week, you definitely wouldn't want to make more than a weekly or bi-weekly commitment to releasing podcast episodes. Even monthly releases can be effective so long as you are consistently producing other types of content.

While you certainly can create personal relationship through blogging, podcasting is more immediate. People can hear your tone of voice and inflection, and every time you release a new episode they will be investing anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes with you - if not more - depending on the length of your episodes. It's a powerful relationship building tool. Your listeners will really get a sense of who you are and what you're about.

Podcasts are great for auditory listeners, but you can also leverage your podcast content by getting your episodes transcribed (industry standard rate is $1 per minute), then publishing the transcripts as blog posts or PDFs. This will be added value to those who want to follow along with your show, or those who would prefer to consume the content by reading it.

Video

If people can already find you on Google and iTunes, where else should you be? Why not make yourself discoverable on the second most used search engine on the planet: YouTube!

By the time you've committed to publishing blog posts and podcast episodes on a regular basis, adding one more thing may seem like a huge commitment. If it feels overwhelming, then take the time to plan it all out. Take your schedule and carve out blocks of time for each task. Establish a regular schedule for each piece of content, even if your output is relatively small at first.

The best policy is always consistency, even on YouTube. If you can make weekly uploads, that is ideal. However, that isn't always possible when you're keeping a regular publishing schedule for a blog and a podcast. Begin by producing one video a month, and as you become more comfortable with producing and editing video, increase your frequency.

Video is great for visual learners and is somewhat unique in that it can be easily re-purposed in two ways: 1) you can get your videos transcribed and publish them as blog posts, and 2) you can take the audio and use it within a podcast episode. The ideal situation is to create unique content across your different streams of output, but hopefully you're beginning to see how you can take each piece of content you create and rework it to fit with other mediums.